NIC VOICE
News Update 04-29-2005 #3:
Message from Mark Tooley, Director UM Action
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Methodist Church.
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View previously released
NIC
VOICE
news updates on the Beth
Stroud Case here:
http://www.faithfulchristianlaity.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=191.
NIC VOICE
news updates published
during the trial week and after have been posted on the
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web site:
http://www.nicvoice.org/beth_stroud_trial_updates.htm
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The following email was received by NIC VOICE on 04-29-2005 at 7:02 PM
and is being forwarded in its entirety. It is followed by
the text of the IRD News Release, “United
Methodist Appeals Committee Sides with Lesbian Minister”.
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-----Original
Message-----
From: Steve Rempe [mailto:mtooley@ird-renew.org]
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 7:02 PM
To: nicvoice@nicvoice.org
Subject: Beth Stroud Decision Overturned
Beth Stroud Decision
Overturned
April 29, 2005
Dear Friends:
Do not be alarmed!
Yes, the liberal-dominated Northeast Jurisdictional Appeals Committee of
the United Methodist Church, as expected, overturned the conviction of
lesbian United Methodist minister Beth Stroud. And yes,
their strained rationales for doing so were absurd. But the United
Methodist Church's Judicial Council will almost certainly overturn this
irresponsible ruling. When it meets this Fall, the Judicial
Council will assuredly issue a ruling that will strongly reaffirm our
church's teachings about marriage and sex. And the ruling will
have church-wide application, setting back the pro-homosexuality forces
even further. Meanwhile, Stroud has said she will not resume her
ordained status until the judicial process is completed. Please
read our news release (http://www.ird-renew.org/register) about
this. And please be in prayer for our Judicial Council, for Beth
Stroud, and for the poor, confused members of the NEJ Appeals Committee!
Sincerely,
Mark
Tooley
Director, UMAction
P.S.: If you
haven't already done so, please take a second to visit the Online
Community page (http://www.ird-renew.org/register) on the IRD website
and update your record. By indicating your denomination and areas
of interest, we can make sure you receive the news releases and
information of interest to you. If this information is unchecked,
you might be missing out on the e-mail updates you want to receive.
Institute on Religion
and Democracy
1110 Vermont Avenue
NW, Suite 1180
Washington
D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 969-8430
Fax: (202) 969-8429
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UM ACTION:
IRD
NEWS RELEASE
The Institute on Religion and Democracy
April 29, 2005
United Methodist Appeals Committee Sides with Lesbian Minister
Contact: John Lomperis
An appeals committee
of the United Methodist Church’s Northeast Jurisdiction has voted to
return a defrocked lesbian minister to the pulpit, despite that
denomination’s policy that clergy may not be sexually active outside
heterosexual marriage.
The appeals committee
ruling will not really take effect until it has been reviewed by the
Judicial Council of the entire United Methodist Church later this year.
“This ruling was an
ill-reasoned, obtuse and tortured attempt to avoid applying the plain,
unequivocal meaning of the Scriptures and church law,” commented Mark
Tooley, a United Methodist spokesman for IRD. “It will be
overturned by the church’s top court. It represents the
fading voice of a declining, elite minority within United Methodism that
is still enthralled by the failed, revisionist theologies of the last
century.”
Beth Stroud was
defrocked by a church trial last December. She had publicly
challenged United Methodism’s teachings by declaring her ongoing sexual
involvement with another woman. The United Methodist
Church’s Book of Discipline states that clergy must show “fidelity in
marriage and celibacy in singleness.” It also states that
“self-avowed practicing homosexuals” may not serve as clergy.
But the appeals
committee, dominated by persons who do not support United Methodist
teachings on marriage and sexuality, chose to overrule the church’s
policies in Stroud’s favor. The committee justified its
stance by alleging the church had not defined what “practicing
homosexual” means. And it claimed that the prohibition of
extra-marital sexual behavior was somehow an illegal new “doctrine”
invented by the United Methodist General Conference in recent years.
“These arguments are
simply silly,” Tooley concluded. “The committee pretends not to
know about over 3,000 years of consistent Jewish and Christian teaching
about homosexuality.”
United Methodism’s
Judicial Council will review the appeals committee decision at its next
meeting later this year. The church’s top court has insisted on
enforcing the church’s teachings about the sexual conduct of its clergy.
The governing General
Conference of the United Methodist Church has debated homosexuality
every four years since 1972 and has always decided in favor of
traditional Christian teachings. The margins of those votes,
typically two to one, will grow larger as the church continues to become
more international and as the most theologically liberal regions in the
U.S. continue to decline the most quickly.
United Methodism has
over 11 million members worldwide, 8.2 million of whom are in the United
States. Most of the overseas church is in Africa, where United
Methodism is growing quickly and where it is strongly conservative in
theology. Most United Methodists live either in the southern
United States or in Africa. Less than 15 percent of United
Methodists live in the church’s Northeast Jurisdiction, which is more
liberal and fast declining in membership.
The church’s Judicial
Council has ruled that church trial jury members who cannot in
conscience support the church’s teachings on sexuality must recuse
themselves. But the Judicial Council has not ruled on the
permissibility of appeals committee members serving even if they oppose
church teachings, an issue clearly in play with the Beth Stroud appeal.
Northeast Jurisdiction Appeals Committee Chairman Scott Campbell is a
prominent critic of church teachings about sexuality, and clearly a
majority of the committee shared his views.
“Despite this ruling,
based on demographic and political trends in United Methodism around the
world, there is almost no way that this denomination will reverse course
on the issue of homosexuality and follow the path of the Episcopal
Church,” Mark Tooley said. “The end result of the Stroud
appeal will be, ironically, a stronger church stance on the prohibition
of extra-marital sexual behavior by its clergy.”
###
(Mark Tooley is
available for comment on this issue. He may be reached on his cell
phone. The phone number is 703-409-4035)
Date: 4/29/2005
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